the WHY house

Single Family Unit

Lower 9th Ward,

New Orleans LA

2011

102m2/ 1100sf

with D.Oscelik

and E.Budanova

The “WHY house” is a critical response to a call for affordable, low-energy, single-family homes for the communities of New Orleans Louisiana, long after the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The project was developed as an entry for an international architectural competition. One of the requirements in the competition’s brief was that the post-Katrina building codes should be met while the design was to follow Passivhaus Standard objectives.

The proposed design questions the brief as the implementation of a Passivhaus in a subtropical climate seems counterintuitive to us. The WHY house aims to achieve a more flexible, responsive and adaptive design which would be more financially and environmentally efficient following passive design strategies such as induced natural ventilation, solar form finding, and adding resilience to the building components.